Bingo. If I were selling on premise software, this would be in my deck. Selling fear is one of the oldest sales tricks in the book.
I do believe however that enterprises act more rationally than consumers. So while consumers seem to be falling in to the "meh, I don't have anything to hide" camp, enterprises tend to be a bit more conservative. The thought of the NSA's private contractors going through customer data and hr records could actually be enough to slow down some of these enterprise SaaS companies.
I would downvote this story if I could. Color operates in a parallel bizarro world that most of us will, thank god, never know. $40M in funding and no users? Check. Three months off to Hawaii as founding CEO? Check. CEO who says he would pivot if he was back in the office? Check. Move along, there's nothing to see here.
So you would downvote a story because of jealousy? Whatever your opinion on Color it's still an important story and something other Hackers obviously care about. The fact someone can get funded so much money, completely fail, and then get bailed out says a lot about our industry.
"Aiming for the center of the basket increases the chance of hitting the front of the rim and having the shot drop straight down."
Has anyone ever seen a free throw drop straight down after hitting the front rim? Seems like the only way to make that happen would be to throw the basketball baseball style on a line, and nail the bottom of the front rim. Even Shaq had better mechanics than that.
> You may want to consider putting the $10K towards a good cause (if Miso eventually steps up), to show it was never about the money.
Why in god's name shouldn't it be about the money? He delivered incredible value by finding the company some talent in a talent-scarce environment. $10k seems like a pittance – but definitely one he earned.
Well, I think if it were about the money he would have lawyered up, and not gone public. My understanding of his post was that the decision to go public meant he cared most about warning others.
Who made the rule that it has to be about one thing, and one thing only? He can care about the public good and his own good all the same time. I know I do.
But it is about the money - and it should be. It sounds like the underlying premise is that to claim the money one is due is somehow unethical and should be beneath a truly moral person. Nothing is father from the truth. If one was promised some compensation for something, he is due that compensation, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with asking for this money and absolutely no obligation to show "it was never about the money" - the money is part of the deal and it should be about it as well as about any other thing. If one is hired to do work for pay, one does it for the money, it is about the money (maybe not only, but also) and always was. Otherwise it is volunteering - which many of us also do, but Miso is not a volunteer organisation, as far as I know. So asking them to pay their debts is completely fine even if it's 100% "about the money".
You are under absolutely no obligation to do or say this, but if that's where you want it to go, good for you. I would be equally supportive if you promised to buy a hot tub with the money. You earned that cash.
Why wouldn't it be about the money? Getting paid for one's work is pretty freaking important. The sum in question is more than enough to actually care about.
Talk about taking transparency to the next level. This post has revenue, freemium conversion data, cap table breakdown, valuation, vc negotiation detail, and how Rand and his co-founder / mom amicably decided to part ways. Amazing. Has there ever been a private company at this scale with this level of transparency? Go SEOmoz.
I haven't really noticed the pall. LinkedIn and Jive are doing very, very well on the public markets. As far as the private markets, valuations and acquisition prices don't seem to be, ahem, slipping too much.
Oh man, I couldn't disagree more. Not only is Foursquare still relevant and presumably growing, but there are a whole bunch of cool services building on Foursquare location data in interesting ways (Instagram, Path, Sonar, Banjo, etc.).
I find myself talking about Rapportive a lot as one of the better executed examples of the contextual delivery of relevant content. Glad these pioneers got rewarded for their work.
I do believe however that enterprises act more rationally than consumers. So while consumers seem to be falling in to the "meh, I don't have anything to hide" camp, enterprises tend to be a bit more conservative. The thought of the NSA's private contractors going through customer data and hr records could actually be enough to slow down some of these enterprise SaaS companies.